


Pillow Talk

by Madam_Chauncey



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, He's got it bad for her tbh, Kairi asks Sora to stay the night, Kairi is there for him, Romance, Sora has a bad dream, Sorry Not Sorry, Spoilers for KH3 and beyond, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 00:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madam_Chauncey/pseuds/Madam_Chauncey
Summary: He'd had his fair share of restless nights since returning home, but she was always there to give him better dreams.





	Pillow Talk

**Author's Note:**

> Again, spoilers for KH3 and secret ending stuff. This is the one I really wanted to write. It's focused on the aftermath of the abuse of the power of waking to save Kairi and the effect it has on Sora. This fic assumes they have been together for a few months and the relationship started shortly after he got back from Shibuya. Future game and DLC may invalidate some of this, so don't read too much into it.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this mindless excuse for fluff nonetheless.

Sora laid on the plush bed in his bare feet, counting the purple feathers that adorned the pink canopy that draped overhead and along the sides of the four-poster frame.

It was dark out; the light breeze from the ajar window making the room comfortably cool while the light from the bedside lamp gave enough illumination for him to see the pattern to be able to count it.

The smell of her on every surface in the room lulled him into a calm. That paired with the low lights and the mouse quiet made his eyelids begin to feel heavy. The monotony of counting to occupy himself began to take its toll—he felt the relaxing fuzz of sleep beginning to encroach in from the far corners of his mind.

After a few moments he felt the mattress slowly sink from beside him under an unknown weight. He sat bolt upright with a start.

He felt a soft hand on his arm and he quickly calmed from the surprise, looking over to see Kairi in her nightgown. If she hadn't told him she was leaving to take a shower, he would have been able to guess from the clean, sweet smell that hung over her skin.

"You okay?" she asked softly, fingers brushing across his forearm, which sobered him up from the start he'd had while half asleep.

The brunette glanced quickly at her wall clock that read 10:33 PM. He swung his legs over the side of her bed, feeling loathe to separate himself from the warmth and comfort he had been enjoying.

"Yeah, I 'm fine. Sorry I almost fell asleep. I guess I should probably go. Was trying to wait til you got back."

He made to get to his feet, but he could feel her drape herself across his back.

"You sure? It's dark and you look tired. You can stay the night… if you want."

The idea made his mouth go dry and his head lolled back into the comfortable cradle of her collarbone. She combed her fingers back through his hair. Her tidy, medium length nails felt so good against his scalp that he immediately stopped trying to get up.

"Mm. You sure that's okay?"

She took advantage of the position and kissed his jawline down to his cheek.

"It's okay with me. Do you need anyone else's permission?"

Sora made a breathy sound of contentment from deep in his chest. He anticipated her kisses to continue but she pulled away and he couldn't help feeling cheated.

"You don't play fair," he mumbled.

Kairi laughed, the sound musical and settling nicely in his ear. "How so?"

Sora didn't answer, only turned his face at a different angle, attempting to catch what he really wanted: her lips. The princess of heart purposely pulled them behind her teeth, effectively killing any enjoyment he might have gotten from the contact, so he gave up right before reaching her mouth. Sora grumbled.

"Nice try." Kairi flicked his nose. "You're not getting anything else until you tell me your answer. You want a proper kiss? I'd be willing to bet you might get more than one if you aren't so eager to leave."

The breath caught in Sora's throat at the ultimatum. He wrested himself from his comfortable position and picked her up by the bottom of her thighs, pulling her with him to set her down at the head of her bed. She gave a small yelp as she was hoisted into his arms rather effortlessly.

Settling down beside her on his side, tracing her full bottom lip with his finger, he asked. "Who says I'm eager to leave?"

"You were about ready to jump out of the window a moment ago," she accused softly.

"Not true," he countered. "Was trying to be a gentleman."

She smiled at him, looking too cute for her own good. It made his chest ache. "What does one have to do with the other? Does staying over automatically mean you're going to be doing something ungentlemanly?"

"Quit teasing and tell me where I can get a spare blanket."

Kairi bit her lip. "Why? I have a big, warm one already on my bed."

Sora sighed. "Kairi, I'm not gonna make you sleep on the floor."

"Not asking you to. My comforter and my bed are big enough for two."

The implication of what she was saying hit him like a head-on car crash.

He'd stayed over many times as a kid and even as a teen. Most times it was Riku plus the pair of them, and the boys always slept on the floor. He'd been back from Shibuya for 6 months; he and Kairi had been seeing each other for four and a half, but the thought of sleeping in the same bed as her still sent adrenaline through his veins. It wasn't even a sex thing; the intimacy it called for was something both scary and _exciting_ in his mind.

Sora was thrown back to reality by a pair of soft lips pressing against his own timidly. He returned the affection eagerly, doing what he thought was a good job of not letting his emotions betray his cautious excitement.

"I was hoping that would make you finally close your mouth. It's been hanging open this whole time." The red-head beside him joked after she pulled back.

"Kairi…"

She shushed him comfortingly, pressing her small, smooth palm against his cheek.

"Don't look so serious," she scolded him softly, kindly. "If you don't want to, it's fine. I—"

"No, wanna stay with you." He interrupted, "I was just surprised, that's all."

She smiled at him in that adorable way that made his bones ache. It seemed unfair to be able to wield charm that effectively and yet be totally oblivious to it like she was. Other times he was convinced she knew just how hopelessly devoted to her he was and exploited it in harmless ways—like convincing him an afternoon nap was unnecessary; he should take her for a walk on the beach instead.

Sora couldn't say he minded all that much. He always ended up much happier with her than he would have ever been doing his own thing.

She tapped her chin in thought. "Then again, maybe I should be more cautious. You did sneak in through the window, after all."

Kairi giggled, unable to maintain the seriousness she was attempting to emulate. He playfully nudged her knee with his.

"You let me in. What does that say about you?" he joked.

Her laugh came to a natural stop after he spoke, her legs tangling with his.

"It says I trust you, Sora." she replied, her voice quiet but adamant, and he could tell she was being sincere. Not that Kairi was prone to lip service, but he knew love was good at making loose-lipped disasters out of those under its spell.

Or was that just him?

His blood percolated at her admission, the implications settling into him, warm like a draught of hot cocoa.

 _I don't deserve her_. The thought had muddled through his mind many times in the last few months they'd spent together. She was just so _good_ , in every sense of the word. So good to him, so good to her friends, her dad. Beautiful, determined. She was fierce when she was angry, and she was quick to keep him on his path, keep him in the light.

After everything, he was just grateful he was allowed to have this with her. It was tempting to call himself lucky, but this part of their relationship felt so right and so natural it seemed like an oversimplification to call it luck. Nothing this good could be chalked up to mere chance. He imagined that only destiny could feel this all-encompassing and perfect, so that's how he thought of them.

He hadn't realized he had been gawking until Kairi broke their mutual stare, blushing prettily.

"You're making me self-conscious, Sora." She murmured into her pillow. "Something on my face?"

Sora shook his head. "Oh, no. Sorry. Just thinking."

"About what?"

He knew she'd only get bashful if he told her the truth, so he decided to play coy. "My secret, Kai."

She huffed in response to that, puffing out her cheeks slightly. It came off as more endearing than intimidating, and as tempted as he was to laugh, he knew better. Again, Kairi was a force of nature when you really made her mad.

"Well, I'm going to try and finish this book. You and your secrets can occupy yourselves."

She leaned over to her bedside table, picking up a novel that looked like one of her detective stories and opened it to where her old charm that he kept while fighting the Organization for the first time marked her place.

A fierce warmth settled into his belly at the thought that it still meant so much to her, to the point that she used it as a bookmark. She quietly nestled into her nest of pillows and began to read by lamplight.

He stayed on his side facing her, cheek balanced in his palm, propped up by his elbow. He watched her expressive eyes rove back and forth, reading the words on the pages, her brows furrowing and unfurrowing. Several minutes passed with her reading and him just lying there.

Sora, feeling just a bit slighted, re-situated so that he was bracing himself on either side of her with his hands. Her space totally invaded, Kairi paused her reading. She cradled her book in her lap as he pulled himself up to her, kissing her cheek.

"Sora…" she warned him.

"Mm? What?" he asked before his lips decided on their next target and found her temple. He nuzzled into the silky strands of her hair and she made a soft sound from deep in her throat. "You're not actually mad at me, are you?"

Her eyes closed, leaning her head back onto the post behind her. "D-don't be stupid… Just wanted to read."

"I remember you asking _me_ to stay the night."

"I did," she admitted, "I also remember someone being shy about it too. What happened to that?"

He chuckled against her skin, pressing a kiss to her neck right below her ear. "Don't worry about it. You're supposed to be reading, remember?"

Kairi huffed, smacking his arm poised across her lap with the paperback novel. "How can I when you're distracting me?"

After one last peck to her cheek, he pulled away finally. "You're distracting _me_." he rebutted.

"I haven't done anything"

He ran his thumb across the apple of her cheek where his lips had been a few seconds ago. "You don't gotta. You're just too cute all the time. Makes me wanna be close to you."

He noticed she finally closed her book, putting it away. She took his hand, winding their fingers together, her small hand warm and strong inside of his larger one.

"You never let me out of your sight as it is," she reminded him, settling back down into the pillows around her. Sora followed suit.

"Not true. You went to visit Namine a whole week at Radiant Garden and I stayed behind. Besides, after I almost lost you, can you blame me?"

He knew her answer to that before he even asked, but he still blanched under her pointed look anyway.

Maybe he was a little overbearing. He knew it was wrong, but he felt an inexplicable drive to protect her at all costs. She was becoming quite the keyblade wielder herself, but even still he couldn't shake the determination of wanting to watch over her, especially after Xehanort made her his final victim.

Kairi softened her look after a few moments. "It's okay. It's not like you ever try to tell me I can't do something, you just pout a little. It's actually kind of sweet."

Sora felt his face heat up. "I don't _pout_ ," he grumbled.

"And there it is," The red-head giggled and reached over, cutting her bedside light down to its dimmest setting. "Come on; since I'm obviously not going to get any reading done, let's go to bed."

He watched her move to the far right side of her big canopy bed, pulling back the blankets and burrowing underneath them up to her chin. Sora just laid three feet away, watching her for a moment, uncertain what she expected him to do.

Kairi offered him no direction, just looked at him with those large, cerulean eyes.

She chewed her bottom lip nervously and his heart suddenly filled to capacity with affection for her. He felt every gaping loss in his heart when they were separated and felt it fill again with a rush of euphoria when he remembered reuniting in places like Hollow Bastion. Mostly he just felt completely unworthy yet forever grateful to be in this moment with her.

It was nearly overwhelming. Before he could stop himself, he leapt over to her side of the bed and latched onto her.

His arms wound around her small shoulders and he buried his face into the curve of her neck once again, basking in the sweet, clean fragrance that was so comforting, so calming, so _Kairi_.

"S-Sora…" he heard her breathe somewhere near his ear. "What's gotten into you?"

"Mm. Nothin'."

Another one of her musical giggles was his reward. "You could have at least gotten under the blanket with me if you wanted to cuddle."

That seemed a reasonable request to him. He let her go for a moment while he joined her under her linens.

He embraced her again, tugging her closer to him. Her body jerked a little in his arms and he felt immediate concern. He loosened his hold on her a bit.

"Are you okay? I'm not hurting you, am I?"

The princess of heart shook her head. "No, your feet are just big and cold against mine."

He made to move away from her, but he felt her purposely nudge his feet with her own pleasantly warm ones.

"It's okay. I'll just have to warm them up for you," she told him with a smile that was somehow equal parts innocent and mischievous.

She was going to be the death of him, but at least he would die criminally happy.

"Goodnight," Kairi kissed him, soft lips pressed against his with purpose. Sora returned the affection wholeheartedly. It wasn't heady but it wasn't overtly chaste either. It was just love and uncomplicated happiness. A few moments later she pulled away and gave him a sweet smile before rolling onto her side, pulling Sora's arm so it securely wrapped around her middle.

It didn't take long for sleep to creep up on him.

* * *

 

Sora woke with a start some time later and his arms instinctively grasped for Kairi, a moment of panic gripping his heart in the wake of a restless, unwanted dream.

The room was still pitch black aside from the small light emanating from her lamp, so he knew it was still late. He had been in the middle of some reoccurring nightscares; images from the darker parts of his adventures—the parts he tried not to remember.

He would get flashbacks of the Keyblade Graveyard, of when Xenmas had yanked Kairi away, when Xehanort had cut her down and made her his 13th key. Many times the unwelcome dreams took the form of things that had happened even farther back; Destiny being swallowed up by the Darkness and his two best friends being whisked away, remembrances of failures and uncertainties—things he didn't confide in anyone about.

It had been happening nearly every night when he first returned, but the nightscares eventually became more and more infrequent. When he and Kairi had started seeing each other, they all but stopped.

Sora had shifted some in his sleep but was still firmly wrapped around Kairi. Her fingers were threaded through his and pressed against her stomach. He had buried his face into her neck again, her short red strands tickling his nose as the familiar way the both of them fit together like interlocking puzzle pieces settled him down from the inner turmoil brewing in the aftermath of his dreams.

He woefully began to detangle himself from her. He honestly felt like he could lay here forever swaddled in her warmth and just feeding off the happiness he got from being close to her, but he was also feeling restless and sweaty after his nightscares. He needed to get a little air.

Sora carefully let go of her hand and pulled away as slowly as possible, careful to swathe her with the blanket where he had been against her so the nip in the air wouldn't wake her.

Kairi sighed and Sora froze. She rolled over to face him, her mouth forming a little 'O'. He almost dove in for a kiss because those maddeningly inviting lips and her adorable sleep calm expression right next to him were nearly _too much_.

Through great self-restraint that he honestly felt like a superhuman for being able to use, he resisted and got up from her big, comfortable bed. He walked carefully across the room in the dark to her large window, the sound of his bare feet muffled on her carpeted floor.

Her dad, the mayor, was out of town on some kind of business. Sora almost convinced himself to go downstairs and out the front door for his fresh air, but decided against it. Kairi had one particularly nosy older neighbor, and while Sora knew any distasteful statement they could make about her or their relationship would be total garbage, he didn't want anything unpleasant said about Kairi because someone saw him skulking in her front yard in the middle of the night.

Sora sat on the bench at the large window in her room. He pushed the curtain aside so just the smallest sliver of moonlight broke through and just pushed the window open just a little farther from where it converged in the middle.

The night air washed over him and he became acutely aware of just how sweat damp his shirt was. He pulled it over his head and took it off, clad only in his white tank top. The small draft felt nice against his warm skin.

He was honestly surprised that he had a dream that unpleasant. It had been so long since the last one; he especially thought, being so close to Kairi, that he had a zero chance of another episode.

Of course, the stronger he felt about her, the more he realized what was at stake. He knew their adventures weren't finished, and nor was the danger they faced. The thought of her in trouble or them being separated again took on a different meaning now, just like their relationship had.

Sora supposed it made logical sense in that way for the bad dreams to pop up every now and then, but it still terrified him.

He picked up on the faint briny scent of the sea as he sat longways across the cushioned bench. He couldn't even tell you what his dream had been about. He just remembered he woke with such a longing for Kairi, to make sure she was near him and okay, so maybe it had been about one of the many times he felt like he lost her. He couldn't say for sure.

He leaned his head back against the wall of the little alcove the window was built into and closed his eyes. He could hear the muted sound of the waves just a little ways off and the rhythmic ebb and flow was making his eyelids feel heavy again.

"Sora?"

The soft, sleepy voice made his eyes snap open.

Kairi stood beside him in a beam of white moonlight, rubbing her half mast eyes.

"Oh, Kai. I'm sorry. I tried not to wake you." He apologized.

"Is everything alright? Did you not sleep well?" she almost seemed nervous, wringing her hands out. "I didn't steal all the blankets, did I? Selphie said I always used to do that at sleepovers."

Sora couldn't help but smile at the immediate vision he got of little Kairi wrapped up in blankets while poor Selphie didn't have any during their childhood slumber parties.

"No, no, you were great. I had the best sleep next to you." he assured her. "Just woke up for some reason. Go back to bed, 'kay? I won't be long."

Kairi's brows furrowed, and he immediately knew she wasn't fooled. "Sora, you're the deepest sleeper in the world and also the worst liar. I know something's bothering you; don't tell me to go back to bed."

Sora averted his eyes guiltily back toward the open window and the town below, not wanting to talk about it, but also not wanting to make her upset.

He felt her join him on the bench, straddling his thighs as her cool fingers touched his face, trying to make him turn back toward her.

"You don't get to do this anymore." She told him firmly.

He looked at her dead serious expression, blue eyes shining determined in the moonlight as she sat on his legs, her leverage preventing him from getting away from her.

 _Beautiful_.

"Do what?"

Her small, warm hands came up to cup both his cheeks. "Pull away. It's not like you. Trying to keep everything bottled up is Riku's specialty, and he isn't allowed to do it anymore either."

Sora squared his jaw. He couldn't turn away, so he dropped his gaze again.

"Sora, do you not trust me?"

His eyes snapped back up to her and he felt the blood drain from his face. No, no. That was the last thing he wanted her to think. He just wanted to move on, to not dwell. Especially after all the heft that gripped his heart in Shibuya, he preferred to stay optimistic and he felt like telling Kairi about his weaknesses gave them life. He didn't want her to worry.

Sora swallowed hard as he answered. "Of course I trust you."

She shifted in his lap, leaning forward so she could press their foreheads together. "Then tell me why you got out of bed in the middle of the night to stare out the window. I'm just worried about you."

Hearing her say that broke him. He didn't have the willpower to put her off any longer.

"It's just bad dreams, Kairi. Things that have happened to us, the worlds. Things I regret."

And things he didn't. He wasn't supposed to use the power of waking for personal gain, but he did it anyway, and he'd do it again to save Kairi, nevermind the consequences. Even though she explicitly told him he wasn't allowed to do it ever again.

Concern etched deep into the princess of heart's expression. "How often do they happen?"

The brunette sighed. "Used to be every night when I first came back from Shibuya. They got to be almost nonexistent after this—" _Us_ , he meant. He paused and turned his face in her grasp so he could kiss her palm. "—started. This is the first one in a long time."

Conflict flitted across her light blues. "You don't think it's…"

Sora shook his head, already knowing what she was going to say: _"You don't think it's me, do you?"_

He grimaced at the notion of her taking responsibility for the weakness in his heart encroaching on his dreams. He knew that wasn't the case, and even if it was, there was no way it would make him keep his distance from her. It wasn't even an option at this point. He'd take restless sleep for a lifetime to keep what he had with Kairi. Just one impassioned kiss from her was well worth the trade-off all by itself, nevermind the trust and the bone-breakingly intense adoration that came with it.

He pulled her hands from his face, holding them in his own. " **Not** your fault. You're the only one that keeps them away."

She smiled at him, eyes shimmering, and his head felt fuzzy with affection, almost comparable to drunkenness. This was his second chance; he couldn't spend his time with her worrying about the past. The present was too good, _she_ was too good.

"I love you."

He wasn't entirely sure if he had said it out loud or just in his head.

"Love you, too, silly." Kairi told him, herding him back in the direction of her large four poster. "Come back to bed. I want to give you some replacement dreams—good ones. Enough good memories to push out the bad."

Sora wanted to tell her that she already had, but making more wasn't something he was about to object to.


End file.
